1. Field of the Invention
The inventions relates to the field of structural dunnage devices used to protect and fill voids within cargo enclosures and methods of using the same. More particularly, the inventions pertain to an apparatus and methods that fill voids created between loaded pallets in the lengthwise direction and protect the load from end-to-end forces while also functioning as a dust cover.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior to the present invention various forms of space fillers or cargo protectors have been used. U.S. Pat. No. 7,137,765 B1 to Elze et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,527,488 B2 to Elze et al. are composite dunnage bags containing an inner air bladder surrounded by a supportive shell specifically designed for placement between two parallel rows of cargo, preferably of distances greater than twelve inches, which are used as lengthwise void fillers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,968 to Bourgeois et al. describes a honeycomb roll spacer and U.S. Pat. No. 5,741,098 to Letts III describes a wedge dunnage device, and these patents serve the purpose of protecting and supporting cylindrical cargo loads. As is apparent, however, none of these inventions are directed to stabilizing a load in which there exists underhang gaps, particularly within a row of same-sized pallets that contain loads with substantially similar underhangs.
A prior solution to filling voids created by the underhang of load on pallets is stuffing various dunnage;materials in between the load loaded on adjacent pallets. This solution is not effective, however, because the inserted material will not necessarily stay in the proper protective position, and also cannot be implemented efficiently, both during insertion and removal.
The invention described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,290,969 B2 and 7,066,698 B2 to Bullock utilize adhesive strips to hold cargo together. To effectively hold multiple units of cargo together, these inventions require the cargo to be in close proximity to each other and do not contemplate situations in which underhang space exists.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,647 to Sewell is directed to filling cross-wise voids and preventing overloading of axles on certain trailers.